Third Sunday of Lent: Why is God doing this to us?

“In those days, in their thirst for water,

the people grumbled against Moses saying:

Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?

Was it just to have us die here of thirst…?

So Moses cried out to the Lord: What shall

I do with this people? A little more and they

will stone me…”  --Exodus 17:3-7

“Why did you ever make us leave Egypt…Was it just to have us die here of thirst?”  Sound familiar? Whenever I feel overwhelmed and helpless, exhausted and afraid, desperate, my prayer turns into something a lot like that of the Israelites in the desert.  Why did you do this, God? Why are you making my life so hard? I thought we were friends! What did I do to deserve this?  For me, this usually involves something to do with owning three cats.  So, when I was headed to the HEB Wednesday night to get paper towels (because one of the cats keeps peeing on counters and carpets and linoleum… as well as mail, magazines and tote bags!!!) I was cursing my pets, my prayer life, and wondering what I had done to offend God.

But… walking into the store, I learned firsthand the reality of desperation.  The pandemic known as the Coronavirus finally hit home.  The shelves of the store were almost completely empty. Unless you liked Peanut Butter Captain Crunch you were out of luck as far as cereal goes.  The only rice left was sushi.  Not a single bottle of laundry detergent to be had. Luckily, they still had plenty of paper towels. A big display right next to the front doors.  I wandered around looking for those few other items that I had been asked to pick up, and everywhere I looked were other people wandering with their carts, some of them overflowing with water and canned goods, and frozen pizzas, but most of them half empty like their eyes… Everywhere I looked there was that strange gaze: stunned, afraid, desperate. What’s happening? Why? Who can we blame?

We don’t like feeling vulnerable, none of us do. We don’t like feeling unsafe.  Humans like things to be predictable; it makes us feel safe.  We like to know what comes next, so we don’t have to worry about it.  And yet, if we stay safe, if we hide from danger, avoid being vulnerable, if we remain locked in our secure little risk-free (and germ-free) boxes, if we stay in Egypt… what happens? Our horizons shrink, our view of life becomes smaller and smaller until it gets almost microscopic.  Instead of worrying about our neighbor or about our friends (or even our family) we begin to see only ourselves, our fears, our discomforts, everything is measured by what it will mean to us, what affect it will have on “Me.”

But as I was standing in stunned disbelief looking at the desolate pasta aisle, I had an experience that I think speaks to this question of “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”   Standing there, staring at the barren shelves, gazing in disbelief at the remaining three jars of lo-fat Alfredo, and the one remaining box pasta, some kind of whole-wheat “healthy” rotini—I think I felt like the Israelites. How had this happened? Why would God do this? How come He wasn’t protecting me?  It was a pretty sad moment, but then a woman approached with her full cart and paused. For a moment, I thought she was about to speak to me—she was standing so close. But instead, she reached past me and put a box of spaghetti back on the shelf. Nothing special. Just plain old regular spaghetti. And then she walked away.  I picked up the box and called out, “Thank you.” She turned and smiled and said something like, “I didn’t really need it,” and disappeared.

And so, I come back to the question: Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die in the desert?  What if the answer was yes? What if God said, That is precisely what I am doing?  Only… you won’t die.

Last week at Mass we heard the reading about Abram’s call (Genesis 12:1-4). Abram is living a comfortable life in Haran, when God comes to him and says: Pack up. I want you leave this place and go somewhere far away from your father’s house, your family, your comfort zone, your security. Don’t ask questions. I will show you where to go. It is a foreign land where you will live among strangers and probably feel very vulnerable.  But, that is how I am going to make you into a great nation, that is how I am going to make of you a blessing to all who bless you.

What if the key to becoming who we were meant to be, who we were made to be, a blessing to the world, is to be vulnerable?  What if the real key to becoming fully alive, to becoming a blessing is first to step out of our comfort zone, out of our security blankets and take a risk, take a chance, become vulnerable. Begin to feel thirsty.

I was feeling a wave of panic come over me as I stood there in that crazy madhouse of a grocery store staring at empty shelves and zombie apocalypse shoppers and suddenly a person stopped and put back something she didn’t need.  I wonder if it was because she saw a person in need. Because she saw someone who looked vulnerable, someone thirsting.  I wonder.  And I wonder, who was really blessed in that moment.  I received what? Perhaps a small act of charity from a stranger. A simple box of spaghetti.  But, thinking about that smile as she turned the corner, I wonder what she received? Perhaps something much better… The blessing that comes from helping someone in need.

The other part of this passage that interests me is that little detail of Moses going to God, practically in despair.

What shall I do with this people? A little longer and they will stone me!

Clearly, he too feels vulnerable, helpless, desperate. And yet, in his helplessness he turns to God and through God’s grace blesses the people who do not die of thirst, but receive water from the rock and –in the end—they too become a blessing, become a light for the world; a chosen people, set aside—vulnerable, conquered, exiled, yes!  But in exile, in captivity, in loss they are the bearers of God’s word, they are the chosen people, God’s beloved! 

Think about that during this time of fear and anxiety and empty grocery shelves. This “pandemic.” How God’s love and calling is so often revealed in suffering and a sense of helplessness.  Think about how God may be calling us through this hardship. Through your sacrifice and discomfort and even your fear and loss, how is God calling us to witness His love? It may be something as simple as letting someone else know you are afraid, so that they can be blessed by offering comfort and aid. Or perhaps you will be the one who puts a box of spaghetti back on the shelf so that it will be there for someone else.

Remember, we are here because God has put us here, in this time, this place, this life. We were made for this.  And we are never alone. On His way to Calvary, Jesus walks this path with us.  We are loved.  So, do not be afraid, be vulnerable.

Manna from Heaven

 “Moses said: that is the bread which

the Lord has given you to eat.”

--Exodus 16:15

The story of the manna in the desert has always pleased me.  It is one of those wonderful miracle stories of God’s care for His children: like Noah and ark, or the parting of the Red Sea, or even Jonah and whale; it is a story that speaks to me but has never really concerned me. Never caught my attention in any serious way. Yes, I have wondered about the dietary details (the flavor, consistency, --was there enough fiber, any high fructose corn syrup? that kind of thing…) but I have never sat down and considered what it means. There are people who have looked into it. I had a professor tell me that he had tasted manna once while he was in the Holy Land.  He said it still shows up.  Claimed it was something to do with the dew and some plants over there.  Maybe… I don’t know. I just never even thought about whether it was real.  Not in any meaningful way.

Then, I heard that story again recently (one of the Mass readings last Sunday) and something about it snagged my attention and I was hooked. Caught on it –like a splinter on a red-wood fence; it catches your sleeve and the rest of the day you are wondering, pondering that fence; why did I have to climb Mrs. Jensen’s fence? Why didn’t I just go around?  Or choose that end post where I know it’s safe? And why would I do it when I was wearing my new school shirt? Mom is going to kill me!  Especially when Mrs. Jensen calls about her flower bed and those vines that looked like weeds!  I could have at least taken the shirt off. David did. I had it already unbuttoned! But no, I wanted to show off and… Never mind. 

On the other hand, it is an interesting story; the manna in the desert, that is. Not my shirt. My Mom didn’t even find that one interesting as she paid to have the sleeve sewn up, and I am certain Mrs. Jensen didn’t either –standing at her back door –curlers still in her hair-- yelling at us to stop cutting through her backyard. And we better stop stealing her pomegranates, or she was going to… But, by that point we were over the next fence and laughing the way only a couple of nine-year-olds can laugh, clutching our stolen pomegranate.  She never did call our Moms, that I know of.  Hmmm…It’s funny what sticks with you.

Anyway, this manna thing… I was sitting there in Mass and the Word of God was the last thing on my mind. I was too distracted by the week to come: the in-service meetings at school (I’m a school librarian & teacher by day), our new and very confusing bell-schedule, one of my daughters had just left for graduate school in Minnesota and another was about to move into the dormitory and start college, the third continues to suffer from a sickness no doctor seems able to diagnose (and she’s about to age out of our insurance!); my Mom is becoming more and more confused and requires extra attention, which is putting a strain on sibling relations (we have never been a particularly close family, before now…); and I keep wondering: What am I going to do?  What if she can’t take care of herself? What if she has to move in with us? What if I can’t take care of her? What if she falls? What if… what if… What if I was 35 again and had cute little kids in jumpers and knee socks like that family sitting in front of us? I think I was pretty good at that. And the kids even stand when it’s time to sing.  Like little angels. My kids never did that! What hymn is this? … Good Lord! Who chooses the music around here?

You see…the last thing on my mind was being present to what was happening at that moment. I was too busy worrying about what might happen or what should happen or even what could have happened if I had been a different person with a better job and a thinner waistline and a thicker hairline… Instead of just being present to the blessings I have, I was –in a way-- looking for a short cut around the parts of life I find less pleasant. Isn’t that what worrying really amounts to?  We worry over something that might happen in the hopes that we can jump a fence and cut through a neighbor’s yard and avoid it.  If we worry enough, we might not have to experience it. 

Of course, consciously, we know that isn’t true. But unconsciously or subconsciously or half consciously we hope it is. We hope that worrying about something will work like a kind of talisman to help us avoid it.  And (I think) it also works in reverse.  If we worry about something that has already happened, if we dwell on it and replay it over and over again, we unconsciously are striving to get control of it and resolve it and make it (the memory, the regret, the sting of remorse) go away. 

But in this wonderful ancient story from Exodus we learn two things: first, that God gives us each day our daily bread (sound familiar?); He gives us what we need, so we should receive it and let it nourish us as it will; as He wills; and second, the day’s bread is meant for that day.  In Exodus 16:19, Moses warns the Israelites about trying to save some of the day’s bread for the next day.  Not only is this a vey important piece of dietary advice, but it is good psychological advice as well. We have to learn not to store up and hold onto our miseries or successes to be chewed and rechewed like cud.  God gives us the bread for each day and that is the food we are to be eating.  That applies not only to bread, and days, but to joys and sorrows and times of life.  I think what Moses is telling us here is echoed by Jesus when He says: Do not worry about what you will eat or drink; sufficient unto the day are the evils therein… (cf. Mt 6: 27-34). However, I don’t simply hear this (or Moses) as a warning. I hear this message as a directive, I hear it as a word of guidance.  I hear in it the way God would have us live; trusting in Him, eating His bread –whatever He sets before you each day—in other words, living the life He gives you without worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. Just receive the bread of each day, the challenges and the joys, as a gift.  Yes, the future is uncertain and a little daunting, perhaps. Yes, my Mom might suddenly need a lot of care, and yes, if she came to live with us, that could cause some dramatic changes in our household; but will worrying about it add a hair to my thinning head? No. 

This is the bread the Lord has given me to eat: the bread of a sick daughter and an aging mother and a troubled family and though it seems to me God is giving me too many vegetables to eat and not enough ice cream, this is the food God gives me each day: my daughters, my mother, my wife, my work… This is the spiritual bread God gives me to eat.  Just as the body is fed by a bowl of Shredded Wheat and a glass of Ovaltine, so is the spirit fed by the presence of God in the people we meet and live and work with each day.  Sometimes I look at my life and I want to send the plate back. I want to say: waiter, I think you brought me the wrong order.

But the fact is this waiter never gets it wrong.  Because what He always bring us, each plate heaped up high with it, is the chance to meet Him through love.  Through patience. Through charity. Forbearance. Humility… The chance to receive the bread of life through kindness to another.  The food of God isn’t in the sickness or the suffering so much as it is in the opportunity for us to serve; to set aside our own needs and wants and put someone else first. That opportunity is the gift; that opportunity is the manna God gives us each day. Best not try to take a short cut around that.  In the flesh of the people you live with, meet or work with each day, the Lord has come to meet you.  He is standing at the door… and He’s brought dinner.  Don’t ask if there are anchovies on the pizza, just open the door and invite Him in; ask Him to sit down.

The other thing that occurred to me was this:  Moses’ advice to the Israelites about not saving the manna for the next day. He warns them that if they do, it will grow sour and breed maggots.  I wonder if that’s what my Aunt Betty meant when she talked about borrowing troubles?  If you hold onto hurts and slights and frets and worries they will fester and grow sour inside of you, and breed maggots in your soul.  Perhaps that is a good spiritual way to think about being anxious.  Remember what the Lord said: sufficient unto the day… (Or something like that.)  Anyway, it’s kind of amazing what you can learn when you pay attention to the readings at Mass. Even by accident.

A heart to understand -some more thoughts on Deuteronomy

“But until today the Lord has not given you a heart

to understand , eyes to see, ears to hear…”

–Deuteronomy 29:3

This Sunday we are having a reading from Deuteronomy, and it has given me a pause to think more about this book that I suspect is seldom read all the way through.  This Sunday at mass we will hear Moses speak of the new prophet God is sending (18:15-20).  In answer to their prayers and their fears, God is promising a new prophet (like Moses) who will speak to the people for God. Moses seems to be referring to Joshua --who will take his place leading God's people-- but this reference may also be seen Christologically as a reference to Jesus. But in the context of Deuteronomy, it begs the question: why do the people need a human leader if they have God? And the Deuteronomical answer seems to be: Because God is too much. They have seen His terrible fire and heard His fearful voice from the mountain, and they want an interlocutor. Someone to stand between them and God and speak to them for God (for their own protection).  Fearing for their lives, they have even prayed God will spare them His presence:

“Never let me hear the voice of the Lord my God

or see His great fire again, or I shall die” (18:16).

But why? According to the story, God has just guided (or driven) His people through the desert wilderness for 40 years, protecting them, miraculously providing food and water (even from a rock) and yet they are afraid of Him. Because –they seem to sense—that even now their eyes are not ready for such a vision and their ears unprepared for such a voice.  They need something a little less awesome, something/someone a little more familiar; Moses is about to die and they are afraid to be left alone with God. That is the kind of writing that interests me. If this were fiction, we would be astonished at the imaginative power of such a writer.  But, we maintain that it is not fiction; it is (on some historical, spiritual, theological level) the absolute truth.  Wow.  What an odd book.

And here I am thinking about it on a Saturday morning as I finish my cold coffee and last crust of burnt toast, and wondering myself whether I yet have eyes to see or hears to hear, a heart to understand.

This question of the eyes and the ears and the heart, it fascinates me.  It seems, on one level, as Moses hands the people off to Joshua, that he is saying to them: you weren’t ready before, because “until today” you didn’t have the ears or eyes or heart, but now…  And that made me wonder what Moses might be referring to. What is it that possibly has changed that might make the people better prepared for the presence of God?  And it occurred to me, what is this whole book about: the law. God’s law.

Is it possible that God is saying that with the law we have eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to understand, but without it we are blind, deaf and ignorant?  That the reason the law is so important to God and His prophets is that it is through the law that our eyes and ears will be opened.  This vision of the law – not as something restrictive, imposing burdens on us, but as a gift to help us prepare for the presence of God; as a kind of practice or exercise to get us in shape for that big day when we stand before Him. That is how I have come to see God’s law. I think that is what I am learning from reading these texts and listening to their fearful and glorious message.  

There is another interesting passage in chapter 29 that might support this idea.  Speaking almost like a tour guide, Moses says:

“…the nations through whom we have passed. You have seen their abominations and their idols made of wood and stone, silver and gold…” (29:15-16)

            One can almost hear him saying: Remember all those exotic people and those fascinating lands we passed through on our journey? On your right see the wooden idols, on your left please note the human sacrifice of children, and Oh –look there! See, what a perfect example of an abomination all decked out in silver and gold!

            It is as if God has taken them on this 40 year journey (in which their sandals never wore out, (cf. 29:4) as a way to educate and form them into His people and until now they were blind, until now they were unable to hear or understand, but now “today” they are graduates ready to receive their diplomas from the school of God’s journey –the school of wandering—and their diploma is the law.

            But, like many graduates, the chosen people (after 40 years, you’d think they’d have Ph.Ds) still feel anxious and unprepared for what lies ahead… "Until today" they were not ready…
            As for me, even this morning, I’m still not so sure. But I do know this –I want to keep reading.  And I want to get ready.

Because you did not believe: The Promised Land and the broken shield

“The Lord then said to Moses and Aaron:

Because you did not believe that I could

Assert my holiness before the eyes of the

Israelites, you will not lead this assembly

Into the country which I am giving them.”

--Numbers 20:12

“Come consider the wonders of the Lord…

He puts an end to wars…/ He breaks

The bow, He snaps the spear, shields

He burns in the fire…” –Psalm 46: 8-9

This was my morning reading today. I have been working my way through the book of Numbers, and just came to that wondrous story of the Israelites at Kadesh complaining about their lack of water and Moses striking the rock with a staff to bring forth water for the people (cf. Nm 20. 2ff).  And it is a little painful to run hard up against that statement by God: Because you did not believe… you will not lead the people into the promised land!

I was troubled. Why was God being so hard on Moses and Aaron?  What did they do wrong? They basically did what He told them to do! They took the rod and when Moses struck the rock the water flowed.  Is the problem that Moses struck the rock? Maybe... God told them to “order the rock to yield its waters (some translations read: speak to the rock…” (20: 8b) but instead Moses strikes the rock --twice! There is speculation by some scholars that the second blow is the real problem. But, I don't know.  I'm still pondering it, and it is still troubling. There seems to be a kind of vindictiveness to this God who bans Moses and Aaron from the promised land simply because Moses lost his temper with the people (something God does quite often in this part of the Bible) and struck the rock.

Yet, there was that psalm.  And it kept echoing in my head as I read Numbers.  It worked on me like a counter-melody or a "haunting refrain." Why had God put these two readings together for me this morning? Why had He given me a reading about destroying our defenses and our weapons and a reading about how lack of trust in God could keep us out of the promised land; what was God saying to me? I imagine it has something to do with the way I cling to security and safety.

In the psalm God tells us how He puts an end to war: He breaks our weapons, melts our shields. We are left completely defenseless, completely vulnerable –and completely dependent on Him for protection.  And in the reading from Numbers He told me that if I don’t trust Him completely, depend on Him fully, I cannot reach the promised land.

And as I read the psalm one of the first things that came into my mind was a person I work with who frightens me. The authority and the defensiveness and the anger this person demonstrates make me anxious and fearful and worried about protecting myself and my job.  And my immediate thought was: if I see this person today, I should speak to them. I should share this with them. I should tell them about this wonderful passage from Psalm 46.

God will break our bows, shatter our spears, burn our shield.  God will take away our defenses and then, on top of that, we must trust Him, and THEN, and only THEN, can He lead us to the promised land.  Because the promised land isn’t about an earthly, geographic, space. The Promised Land is found in our faith, in our trust. It is that place where we put our complete faith in God. It is a place without weapons, without defenses, where God is our shield and our guide and our way and our promise.  The way to the Promised Land is through putting our faith in God's might, not our own. The way to the Promised Land leads straight  to the Cross, and then the tomb, and only then to the resurrection.  That is the Promised Land. And the way to get there begins with giving up your weapons, and putting down your shields.